Doctor Who: The Monsters Inside (Book Review)

The Monsters Inside by Stephen Cole is the second novel in the Doctor Who New Series Adventures and features the Ninth Doctor and Rose Tyler, as portrayed on TV by Christopher Eccleston and Billie Piper. It also features a second encounter with the Slitheen, as well as another family from Raxicoricofallapatorius, the Blathereen. This book was also the first story featuring Rose, televised or otherwise, to not take place on Earth. The first line of the book is "Wherever it was, it wasn't Earth." and the acknowledgements thank Russell T. Davies for allowing the author to take Rose to her first alien planet.

I was very impressed with this book. I think the author of this book did a much better job of capturing the characters of the Ninth Doctor and Rose Tyler than the previous novel, The Clockwise Man. It definitely had me hooked from very early on and was very much along the lines of what I would have expected to see on-screen. Interestingly enough, the Blathereen are mentioned again on The Sarah Jane Adventures, and the planetary system this story takes place on, Justicia, is mentioned in the episode Boom Town which makes this the first novel to be referenced on-screen.

Next up, Rose and the Ninth Doctor return to Earth and team up with Mickey Smith in Winner Takes All, the final novel in the first batch of New Series Adventures to be released.

Doctor Who: The Clockwise Man (Book Review)

The classic Doctor Who series had several lines of books associated with it, even after it went off the air. In fact, several of these lines were what kept the flame alive with fans and enabled Russell T. Davies to bring the series back to our screens in 2005. In addition to the novelizations of the televised stories, there were Missing Adventures detailing the exploits of previous Doctors in original unaired stories, New Adventures following the Seventh Doctor and Ace (and eventually other companions such as Bernice Summerfield), Eighth Doctor Adventures which took place after the television movie, and Past Doctor Adventures which was BBC Books' version of Missing Adventures. There were also a couple of spin-off standalone novels: novelizations of radio plays, stories about the Doctor's companions, etc.

Shortly after the new Doctor Who series launched in 2005, BBC Books launched a series of original books featuring the Ninth Doctor and Rose Tyler as portrayed on television by Christopher Eccleston and Billie Piper. These books have commonly come to be known as the New Series Adventures. These books were launched 3 at a time with the first three being The Clockwise Man, The Monsters Inside, and Winner Takes All.

I recently completed The Clockwise Man by Justin Richards. The Doctor and Rose land at the British Empire Exhibition in 1924, where they discover that people are being murdered. In the process of investigating, they meet, among other people, the deposed Czar of Russia. One character referenced simply as Anna in the novel is most likely supposed to be Anastasia.

I'm not going to go into a lengthy exposition on this book, but I certainly enjoyed it. It was nice to "see" Christopher Eccleston and Rose again. I really liked Eccleston as the Doctor and felt he didn't stay long enough. The novel also featured clockwork men which were not too dissimilar to those later featured in The Girl in the Fireplace. I'm not sure if there was any connection between them, but there doesn't appear to be. The novel also mentioned "Bad Wolf", which was part of the story arc for this season: a nice touch.

I'm looking forward to reading The Monsters Inside next. Too many books to read and episodes to watch. :)

Apology

I'd like to apologize for my lack of posts over the past couple of months. Real life has a way of intervening sometimes. :)

I've got several posts lined up once I get a few moments to type them up. I finished watching The Evil of the Daleks which concludes Patrick Troughton's initial season. I also read Doctor Who and the Zarbi, the novelization of The Web Planet and the second ever Doctor Who novelization. I plan to post a review of that. I'll also be watching The Tomb of the Cybermen Special Edition DVD which was released a few months ago and doing a DVD review on it. I will then resume the reconstructions beginning with The Abominable Snowmen, which I'm looking forward to.

I will also be posting a review of the New Series Adventures novel The Clockwise Man featuring the Ninth Doctor and Rose since I recently read it as well. I'm reading both classic novelizations as well as New Series Adventures since I've not read either.

So, stick with me... There's lots of interesting Doctor Who articles on the way. :)